“Yesterday’s” Comic> Transformers: Maximum Dinobots #4

I think we all wanted to ride a dinosaur like a horse at least one in our lives.

Transformers: Maximum Dinobots #4

IDW Publishing (March, 2009)

WRITER: Simon Furman

ARTISTS: Nick Roche (including selected cover) and James Raiz

COLORIST: Joana Lafuente (including selected cover)

LETTERER: Chris Mowry

EDITORS: Denton J. Tipton & Andy Schmidt

Ravage and Laserbeak take back Soundwave from the kid that found him, and the three are met by Shockwave, offering to help fix them up. Meanwhile, Sunstreaker and Hunter arrive at the Machination base, as does everyone else thanks to Hot Rod’s signal. Scorponok takes out Sunstreaker, but Hunter is able to unhook his head from the control system and the other Headmasters are out of action. Just then, Shockwave arrives and Ultra Magnus finally finds Scorponok’s location. The finale’s going to be a blast.

This summary comes from my initial review when the comic came out. However, I have more to say than I did then. I think I have the advantage of having read the previous issue only two weeks ago instead of over a month.

What they got right: Soundwave seems to be speaking through his cassette deck speakers in recorder mode, which is a neat idea. There’s also a potential explanation about Ravage and Laserbeak not talking, as Ravage struggles to speak. It could just be a result of fighting the Skywatch implants but there is an option.

What they got wrong: This is where the hindsight comes in, because I noticed an annoying pattern forming among the Dynobots. “No we aren’t going to listen to you Grimlock because we’re tired of you jerking us around.” “Fine, me Grimlock go fight on my own.” “Ah, who are we kidding, we’re Dynobots. This is what we do.” Choose a position and stick with it! Also, why is the Monstrobot ship a similar design to Steeljaw? It’s not much of an homage considering Blaster and the Audiobots have nothing to do with this story.

Recommendation: I’m not as harsh on this issue as I was in the initial review but it’s still not very good. It’s not the issue to come in on and it has problems. Unless you want the whole miniseries, which we’ll be finishing the next time we get to this series, it’s not worth getting.